Authors: Gerard O’Brien Jon Opie
Publish Date: 2005/12/15
Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 30-41
Abstract
Although connectionism is advocated by its proponents as an alternative to the classical computational theory of mind doubts persist about its computational credentials Our aim is to dispel these doubts by explaining how connectionist networks compute We first develop a generic account of computation—no easy task because computation like almost every other foundational concept in cognitive science has resisted canonical definition We opt for a characterisation that does justice to the explanatory role of computation in cognitive science Next we examine what might be regarded as the “conventional” account of connectionist computation We show why this account is inadequate and hence fosters the suspicion that connectionist networks are not genuinely computational Lastly we turn to the principal task of the paper the development of a more robust portrait of connectionist computation The basis of this portrait is an explanation of the representational capacities of connection weights supported by an analysis of the weight configurations of a series of simulated neural networks
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